All, thank you for the responses, very helpful. It is in fact a male merganser. I looked over him last night and there are some gorgeous feathers on there. On the breast in particular there are some feathers that look almost like miniature white barred turkey feathers.. I can think of a few uses for those for sure.

With regard to skinning - is that a difficult process? One skinned, I could just lay it flat (feathers down) and coat it with borax? How long do I leave the borax there? I assume I would then freezer treat the whole thing?

With regard to the wings - what should I do after clipping them free? I mean, there would still be muscle etc in there.. what needs to be done to the wings so that they can be stored?